Last night gave me quite a scare: I have yet a new type of cough, this time a hollow “whoo-whoo” sound to it and with it, I was coughing up what I thought were body parts!  Everything had the texture of skin, but no blood.  When I got out of bed, I did some quick web research to see that I wasn’t dying.  Nope. Not dying.  The stuff I was coughing up was snot/phlem/sputem that had dried and hardened, sort of like beef jerky.  This made a lot of sense because I had been irrigating my nose and gargling with salt water.  I may have overdone it on the salt; everything tasted salty in my mouth and my blood pressure was way up.  Still, the stuff coming out really grossed me out (by the way, except in extreme cases, you can’t cough up lung or throat parts, even though this is widely believed.  If you do, there will also be a lot of blood).

I did two more hours of chip work.  Another friend brought me bananas so I wouldn’t starve.  There’s still nothing to eat in this house.

In the afternoon, I got another surprise: first off, my doctor was sick so I was sent to another guy; a young, bright Chinese guy.  We hit it off immediately.  He realized that I knew what I was talking about with regards to bronchitis and its treatment.  He allowed me to help diagnose what was wrong with me.  What an interesting approach!  With all the clues assembled, we came to the conclusion that I didn’t have pneumonia, so no need for more X-Rays or blood work, but this doctor also concluded that, while I did indeed have bronchitis, I also had whooping cough.  Whooping cough hit the schools pretty hard in the final months of school year, so if I had kids (and I do), or spent any time in a classroom, which I did, and have some sort of chronic condition, like severe allergies, which I do, then I was a prime candidate to get this highly contagious disease.  The thing with this disease is that the really bad symptoms don’t appear until around week six.  Up to that point, it simply appears to be a cold that never goes away, or bronchitis.  After week six though, the patient quickly develops a severe and persistent cough that sounds sort of like “whoop-whoop.”  I was just starting the seventh week of bronchitis, so the time frame fit.  Whooping Cough can only be cured with antibiotics, otherwise, it is known as the “100 days disease” because it typically takes that long to get rid of it.  I got antibiotics and went home excited about the possibility of ending seven weeks of coughing.

I fired my old doctor and hired this guy.

I must now be quarantined from everybody, especially my kids, until the antibiotics have begun to work.  The thing is, both my kids have a cold right now that could turn out to be whooping cough.  My family arrives tonight from the family reunion.